House of Eratosthenes

Well, the current one is supposed to be super-duper sharp, borderline magical, “Sort of God.” So isn’t it a bit strange we have to have a meaning-of-is deliberation….every time He gets to work on something….about the meaning of success? Why do we have to continually lower the ladder so Sort-of-God can manage to climb onto it?

It brings to mind that only-decent-line from that consistently bottom-ranked Star Trek movie: “What does God want with a starship?”

How many times can the Obama administration claim success for something only to find out later that it all depends on what your definition of “success” is. Let’s take a look at a few examples, shall we? Now do a bit of extra work here and click on some of these links to get the full story on what a complete fraud our Dear Ruler is.

Barack Obama does have talent, and our country did say it wanted His talent. Trouble is, it is only now starting to figure out what this talent is: The ability to sell things buyers should not be buying. Bundled in with this gift, is the ability to spin. The Obama administration sets its sites on a problem and goes about solving it…by means of doing, oh, whatever. Somebody who knows Barack Obama is going to get rich out of the deal in some way…and then the results get spun. That is Barack Obama’s personal strength. He can make things look like whatever He wants them to look like.

It is, to mix up my science-fiction movie metaphors — a Jedi Mind Trick That Only Works on the Weak-Minded.

That’s what we bought. That was the contract. That is who He is. You want to sell something to someone else, by means of concealing some piece of information that would stop the sale cold in its tracks if the other party ever found out about it & thought on it awhile…Barack Obama is your guy. No question about it. Nobody does it better.

But if you’re the buyer, not so much.

Well, the country is the buyer. Every election it has to figure out what to buy & what not to buy.

Ad producers who work for the Republicans in 2012…are you reading any of this? Is it getting through?

Or as Glenn Beck calls it … selling a Crap Sandwich.

I know. He didn’t come up with it. But it’s one of his favorite metaphors when it comes to this … crap.
- philmon | 06/07/2011 @ 19:43
This is the crap you long to eat. You can chow down right now. Eat up! – Obami-Wan Kenobi
- philmon | 06/07/2011 @ 19:47
It brings to mind that only-decent-line from that consistently bottom-ranked Star Trek movie: “What does God want with a starship?”

It is? I didn’t think it was THAT bad…and the line quoted is exactly what blew the cover of the entity that was masquerading as God. The entity could have just said, “Uh…I’ve chosen this particular method to spread the word” or something else ad-libbed. Instead, it attacked the crew for asking an awkward question and that kind of led everyone to figure out they weren’t dealing with the Almighty…

I always thought that “Nemesis” one was the holder of that notorious title (worst film in the series). You know, the last one they released prior to the 2009 prequel/reboot/whatever you want to call it. Supposedly a fan wrote it, instead of the usual professionals.
- cylarz | 06/07/2011 @ 23:43
The Final Frontier presents an unusual situation in which the majority agrees with me. The Voyage Home was the more usual one: I thought that one reeked, everyone else seems to think it’s ambrosia. I managed to snag both of them as part of a birthday present last year, since I’m trying to complete my collection and those two are in the “so bad it’s good” category for me.

I couldn’t believe how preachy Star Trek IV is. I’d forgotten. Left-wing “aren’t humans awful” bullshit up to your ears, then they laid on some more, until it became a parody of itself…then they just kept going. But at least IV had a message or two, and a Campbell Hero’s Journey. The fifth movie didn’t have that, or at least it wasn’t easily understood. Hopelessly muddled mess.

Nemesis had some of the same problems, just not as badly. Nemesis’ crime was: Why would anybody be interested in yet another wrinkle stuck into Captain Picard’s biography for sake of extracting yet another plot device? The “You thought you know Jean-Luc, well here’s something you didn’t know” had already been overdone; that is why a reboot came right afterward. Plus, Nemesis was creepy. Not in an intriguing way, just kind of…ick. You have to be very careful with that. I’d say “Aliens” is the limit to creep factor, any creepier than that and it’s just a gross-out. Creep factor, minus style, timing, pizzazz and empathizing with the audience = horrible movie.

But XII worse than V? Hmmm…comes close, I agree, but doesn’t quite get there. The two ships ramming each other, that was kinda cool. There are no “was kinda cool” scenes in V.
- mkfreeberg | 06/08/2011 @ 06:22
My favorite was always III…the Search for Spock. I also enjoyed all of the NextGen movies except for Nemesis. I seem to be the only Trekkie I’ve asked who liked “Insurrection.” (Then again, I liked the Star Wars prequel films too, so consider the source.)

Star Trek IV *was* kind of preachy – and I definitely noticed this when it was shown on TV a number of times, years and years after it was new. It always seemed that if I asked anyone other than hard-core Trekkies which film was their favorite, the answer was always the same: “The one with the whales.”

I didn’t notice the preachy factor so much back in 1986 when I saw the film in the theater with my dad. I don’t know whether it’s because I was simply too young at the time to pick up on it, or because the “we’ve got to do something, the Earth is counting on us” bit was a relatively novel thing at the time. Oh sure, Earth Day had been celebrated on and off since 1970, and there had been fears of global cooling in the 1970s, but think about it – wasn’t the mid eighties when all this fear of environmental catastrophe stuff really got rolling? I do recall it was around that time that I first starting hearing about the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect (remember that term?) and the rain forest and the overflowing landfills. Star Trek IV fit neatly into all of that, looking back 25 years later.

Or, I could be dead wrong.
- cylarz | 06/08/2011 @ 11:37
I think you’re right. The eco-environmentalism seemed natural at the time because…well let’s just come out and admit it, parts of it make sense. It’s all living stuff, and living things are capable of dying, have to be taken care-of. I think what’s changed over the years is the environmental movement started picking fights with people. Earth-First putting spikes in the trees, we-have-to-pass-a-global-tax, BusHitler…they started defining enemies and mounting campaigns to cause injury to those enemies.

History will show this was a mistake, I think. They would have been much better served to stay on a path of “look, we’re all on this planet, we all have a stake in this.”

Just to bottom-line it: They got tired of waiting for people to contribute money voluntarily, and decided they needed to go after involuntary contributors. Thicker payroll leads to more noxious propaganda.
- mkfreeberg | 06/08/2011 @ 12:40
I think I’ve noticed the same thing you’re hitting on here, and I think you have at least a chunk of it.

I remember being a little kid (under 7) liking “Kimba the White Lion”… turns out it was an early Japanimation that I gather parts of inspired “The Lion King”.

Bought a DVD with two episodes on it for, I dunno, a buck … for my grandson to watch.

It … is …. awful. Between him trying to get the meat eaters not to eat the herbivores and compromising by farming locusts, and in the other episode the whole pacifist theme … but I guess I really didn’t notice all that when I was a tyke. And I turned out OK.

Yeah, unfortunately, he loves it, to.

But regarding the timing of when this zealous Gaia worship and the “oh my God, environmental Earth catastrophe looming unless we ~~reduce~~ elevate ourselves to apes really got going in the mainstream culture …

Wasn’t that about the time the Soviet Union fell and now we didn’t need to worry about Mutually Assured Destruction anymore?

Just a thought that popped into my head when I read the above comments.
- philmon | 06/08/2011 @ 19:45
Wasn’t that about the time the Soviet Union fell and now we didn’t need to worry about Mutually Assured Destruction anymore?

Probably. It does seem like the end of the Cold War really gave the whole “green” movement a shot in the arm.

Rush observed that that’s where all the communists wound up (the environmental movement) after their beloved USSR had ceased to exist. He said they’re green on the outside, red on the inside.
- cylarz | 06/08/2011 @ 23:13

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The Meaning of SuccessTuesday, June 7th, 2011

The Meaning of Success
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011